“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” Nelson Mandela
We focus so much on what is going on around us that we often ignore what is going on inside of us. In fact, many times that is our intent.
It is much easier to lay the blame on circumstances around us rather than be honest with ourselves. Examples are when we really are thinking “I am scared spit-less to do something different, make a change, talk to someone new, whatever.” Or we refuse to let go of our anger – because “we have the right to be angry.”
Yes, we may have the right to be angry. What someone has done to us may be “unforgivable”. However, if we stay focused on that anger, that pain, that place of woundedness, we cannot move forward with our life.
We actually stay connected to that person who caused us pain. We diminish what we can do in our life because we are always looking at the wound and that person and believing that is what has stunted and ruined our life.
Do you really want that person to continue to have that power over you? I doubt it. I am NOT saying you allow a rapist to come back and babysit your kids, hang out with the family.
What I am saying is, CHOOSE that you are more than any act by another person can do to destroy you. Do NOT let them have that power to choose who you are and what you become.
Let go of the bitterness. Mark the spot on the map as one where you don’t go again, and move on to better scenery. If you fell in to a hole and broke your leg – would you spend the rest of your life on the edge of the hole, cursing it?
Or would you go to the hospital, do what you need to heal, then put a marker on your map that you don’t walk near that hole again. And go on to Disneyland (or wherever you want your life to go.)
Don’t let the past have that power over you. Do learn from it and go on. Sometimes you learn that “crap happens” – you did not do anything to bring it upon yourself and nothing you could have done to avoid it.
But don’t spend the rest of your life there. Otherwise you have now made it your altar and you have put up a monument to it, sacrificing your life to it.
The best revenge as they say is success. Walk away and leave the bitterness and hatred to others. You have a beautiful life to live.
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